shadowy corners. As the Zohar says,“ Leit Atar Panui Minei”- there is no place devoid of G-d. That includes the places we are most afraid to feel.
When the Divine within an experience- especially a painful one- is denied, a distortion in the flow of reality arises. Disconnection is born. Illness festers. Depression, rage, and hatred are all cries for reintegration.
This is why Tisha B’ Av is holy. It is the day we let grief speak- completely.
We drop performative wholeness and allow the brokenness. In doing so, we redeem it into wholeness.
The Tikkun of Tisha B’ Av is the revelation of wholeness that includes the broken.
Each Jewish festival is its own medicine in the cabinet of the Holy One.
In the Kabbalistic tradition, they are timed infusions of Divine medicine. Tisha B’ Av is the antidote for suppression. It is the day we take the complaints we whisper in passing and turn up the volume. If on other days our inner protest is a 3, today we bring it to 10.
Don’ t just accept it all. Question. Rage. Cry out. Why do children die? Why, when there is abundance, do people starve? Why is there war, exile, injustice, loneliness?
Not to negate G-d- but to uncover G-d within the very heart of the question. To surrender the illusion that we understand anything.
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